referred to in the second Bull issued by Pius VI. in the year after on the same matter. The rapidity with which its promulgation followed on the outrage, is also evidence of its having been duly prepared beforehand, and in the anticipation of emergencies. After a preamble, to the purport that novel circumstances call for novel provisions,[1] and that an inflexible law cannot meet the needs of an unsettled time, Pius VI. empowers those Cardinals in situ at his death to act, as may seem best to their wisdom, in the observance of the prescribed nine days' interval before electing a Pope. The Cardinals on the spot are authorized, without taking account of their colleagues at a distance, either by unanimous vote or on mere majority, to put off indefinitely, or to any period they may appoint, the election, in the event of grave dangers threatening, and no safe place offering for assembly, as likewise to proceed offhand to an instantaneous election if deemed expedient,-such extraordinary dispensation from the ancient customs of the Church being, however, expressly declared to be limited to the
- ↑ 'Novis incidentibus rebus nova parari iisdem debent accomodarique consilia,'
